Eight months on from the opening salvos of President Donald Trump's trade war, and the real-world impacts are starting to be felt across the globe.

Business Insider took a look at some of the companies and industries blaming a downturn on the president's trade policy.

The world's largest shipping company, American farmers, and small manufacturers are among those that have explicitly blamed tariffs for issues in their businesses.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Trump is claiming there's a deal with China. Judging from his past accuracy I'll wait. I expect them to play him like a fool, maybe dropping tariffs and then reducing the social credit score for anybody who actually buys an American car.

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Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%.

Clearly Trump is in a panic over the reactions coming out of farm country. Here's him bragging about how good it will be for farmers. Of course there are no details available. Yeeeeaaaaah, Donny. Like we haven't heard that song and dance before.

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Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

My meeting in Argentina with President Xi of China was an extraordinary one. Relations with China have taken a BIG leap forward! Very good things will happen. We are dealing from great strength, but China likewise has much to gain if and when a deal is completed. Level the field!

Quote

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Farmers will be a a very BIG and FAST beneficiary of our deal with China. They intend to start purchasing agricultural product immediately. We make the finest and cleanest product in the World, and that is what China wants. Farmers, I LOVE YOU!

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

The Trump administration did release a list of what it called examples of leadership, including sanctioning Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua over corruption and attacks on democratic institutions, and it celebrated adding language to the final communique that the World Trade Organization is in need of reform. It also blocked other nations’ attempts to add any denigration of protectionism to the document.

But most diplomats I speak to say Trump’s America First focus comes off as “American throwing its weight around,” mostly with its friends, and soft-shoeing criticism of its enemies, and this summit was no exception. It was the United States that held up agreement on almost every section of the final communique, according to the AP and other news outlets.

That’s why meetings like the G20 are becoming opportunities for friends, frenemies and adversaries of America to create new connections meant to circumvent or survive without Washington.

Putin announced that he was renewing Moscow’s deal with Saudi Arabia to cut oil production, to combat a looming supply glut that could produce lower oil prices.

France and China jointly announced their commitment to implement the Paris Climate Agreement—the one Trump pulled out of—and the final G20 statement upheld the accord, sans the United States. Now parties to the climate change convention that the U.S. has spurned are kicking off a two-week U.N. meeting in Poland. They're trying to meet an end-of-year deadline to come up with rules to try to keep global temperatures from rising by up to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile, Iran underscored Trump’s go-it-alone performance at the G20 with a move of defiance Saturday, launching a medium-range ballistic missile. No doubt Tehran was motivated by the Trump administration’s announced hope just prior to the G20 that it would use the summit to unify an international coalition to totally cut off Tehran from the outside world economy.

There were no major, meme-creating gaffes by Trump so the wider public—Trump supporters and haters alike—are unlikely to take much notice of this event.

But America’s allies will remain worried. That tension will keep fueling the outreach by America’s allies to each other, building connections for a possible time when Trump is too hobbled by the Mueller investigation or too inward-looking to come to their aid.

As one high-ranked diplomat put it to me, in a phrase that captures the sentiments of many I've spoken to: the Trump administration is like a rickety plane in flight. It’s working, but you don’t know how long it will stay up, or if it will deliver its passengers safely. So America’s allies are looking for parachutes.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Farmers will be a a very BIG and FAST beneficiary of our deal with China. They intend to start purchasing agricultural product immediately. We make the finest and cleanest product in the World, and that is what China wants. Farmers, I LOVE YOU!

Trumpian intellect on display: the 2018 crop has already been plowed under, left to rot in the fields, or sold at a loss. How's that for "BIG and FAST?"

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

Actually, a lot of it is still around in storage, either in the silos, or in the field in those bags as long as a football field. Couldn't say just how much, but certainly not all.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

Actually, a lot of it is still around in storage, either in the silos, or in the field in those bags as long as a football field. Couldn't say just how much, but certainly not all.

No, not all. But it's a buyers' market on sale, and a sellers' market for storage. Which is at capacity, and a lot of it waited too long and has mostly been rejected as worthless.

Make no mistake: soy farmers took it, hard, this year from someone they almost all voted for. Some are trying to make up a narrative that blames someone else and others are nobly taking one for the team while still justifying Trump. But the net effect is not going to be good for the Party or, two years on, for Trump.

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

Farm bankruptcies are on the rise in the Upper Midwest, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve, doubling from their recent lows in 2014.

At least 84 farms filed for bankruptcy from June 2017 to June 2018 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota, according to analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The report released earlier this month shows that over the same time period in 2014, 32 farms filed for bankruptcy.

The numbers have increased steadily since then, with 46 bankruptcies reported in 2015, 60 bankruptcies reported in 2016 and 67 reported in 2017.

In 2010, 70 bankruptcies were reported in the five states, but that was following the financial collapse of 2008–2009 and a brutal recession.

Some experts fear the worst is yet to come amid falling commodity prices and the Trump administration's battles with China and other countries on trade.

“Current price levels and the trajectory of the current trends suggest that this trend has not yet seen a peak,” wrote Ron Wirtz, an analyst at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.

More than 60 percent of the reported bankruptcy filings for the region were in Wisconsin, which could suggest a large number of dairy farm bankruptcies. Wisconsin is the country's second largest producer of milk.

Depressed prices on farm goods such as corn, dairy and soybeans are also likely leading to a spike in Chapter 12 filings, according to the report. China has also largely closed its market to U.S. soybeans amid the fight over trade.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

This sums up Trump's latest round of payments to farmers. If only some thought had gone into his trade war BEFORE he started throwing tariffs around.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Kevin Hassett, White House Economic Adviser and author of Dow 36,000, tell us how Trump's tariff policy is hurting China. He's actually right about that but it's also hurting us because it was never thought out and companies or government agencies had no time to prepare. He also doesn't understand that while China has been dependent upon exports they can start shifting their economy to be less dependent on exports and have already shifted source nations for some of their imports. If they even partially pull much of this off, and Trump has certainly given them incentive to do so, then Hassett's statement that "Apple's sales and everybody else's sales will recover" is going to be as prophetic as "Dow 36,000".

Quote

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Thursday that “it’s not going to be just Apple” that faces revenue shortfalls as a result of the trade tensions initiated by President Donald Trump between the United States and China.

“It’s not going to be just Apple,” Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said. “I think that there are a heck of a lot of U.S. companies that have a lot of sales in China that are basically going to be watching their earnings be downgraded next year until we get a deal with China. And I think that that puts a lot of pressure on China to make a deal.”

Apple on Wednesday significantly lowered its sales forecast for the recent quarter. CEO Tim Cook explained: “While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China.”

Hassett added Thursday, noting that he was a “globalist” before joining the Trump administration: “If we have a successful negotiation with China, then Apple’s sales and everybody else’s sales will recover. But right now, China is feeling the blow, really, of our tariffs, and I think that that’s an appropriate place for us to have taken the relationship given the amount of stuff that they were stealing from us.”

One of the few areas of policy I can actually agree with Trump and I still just have to shake my head at how ham-fistedly he's handling it all. I wouldn't be shocked if Xi takes the same tack with Trump as Trump has with the shutdown. In that case there will be no deal until Trump is out of office. I wonder how many Americans will get hurt by that. Meanwhile maybe the Trump Organization give the Americans who get harmed jobs ... as long as they accept the same pay and working conditions as his illegals.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Leaders of Mexico’s agricultural sector are urging “mirror measures” on U.S. farm imports in politically sensitive products such as yellow corn and poultry, in an effort they argue would counter decades of subsidized imports from the United States.

The three-month-old government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is currently working on an updated list of products imported from its northern neighbor on which to possibly apply a second round of tariffs in response to U.S. measures imposed on Mexican steel and aluminum by the Trump Administration last year.

Last June, Mexico imposed tariffs of between 15 and 25 percent on steel products and other U.S. goods, in retaliation for the tariffs applied on the Mexican metals imports that Trump imposed citing national security concerns.

Mexico’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade Luz Maria de la Mora told Reuters last week that Mexico is reviewing the list of U.S. products to which former President Enrique Peña Nieto applied reprisals. She said a new list would be set by the end of April if the United States has not withdrawn tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum before then.

“Yes, there is the lobby, and yes we agree that a mirror policy applies,” Bosco de la Vega, head of Mexico’s National Farm Council, told reporters on Tuesday when asked if Mexican farmers are pushing to include specific U.S. grains, chicken and beef products in the new list.

“The Mexican government knows that the U.S. agricultural sector is what hurts the United States’ government the most,” said de la Vega, pointedly noting that American farmers constitute “President Donald’s hard-core base.”

He said Mexican grains farmers have been “the big losers” during decades of liberalized agricultural trade with the United States.

Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, has pledged to make Mexico self-sufficient in key farm products in which U.S. imports have grown dramatically over the past couple decades, including yellow corn, used mostly by Mexico’s livestock sector.

“Over the past 25 years, the government allowed corn, wheat, sorghum, soy, milk and other products to be imported below production costs,” said Victor Suarez, a deputy agricultural minister.

Suarez added the long-standing policy of previous Mexican governments to allow heavily subsidized U.S. farm products has not yielded lower prices for consumers and should be replaced by a more protectionist policy.

Looks like Trump's "logic" of nationalism and protectionism is being thrown right back in the farmers' faces. Oh well. If they voted for Trump (or more to the point didn't vote for Clinton) then I guess all I can say is...

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”